Little River

http://www.underwatercavephotography.com/

The day after Madison Blue we headed to Little River Springs which also contributes to the Suwnannee River about 20 miles south-east of Peacock Springs.

Road map from Peacock Springs to Little River Springs

Like Madison, Little River currently had a hectic current, but you are allowed to dive the cave system with scooters. We hadn't used our scooters since Ginnie, so we were excited to get them in the water again.

I couldn't find a map for Little River that is commonly used by people or published, but I did find a survey map from 1996 which has been upgraded with readable print (this is the one I used to mark our route), and then there are various other hand-drawn maps and even a cross section of the system. 

Map of our route through Little River to 1600' on the main line

Cross section of Little river

The actual 1996 survey map for Little River

Hand drawn (not to scale) map of Little River (entrance to the right on this map)

We knew that the tunnel from the entrance would lead us in an anti-clockwise corkscrew to a chimney that would drop us down to about 32m. We knew there was a T on the main line at the start of the "merry-go-round". And we planned to always stick right on the main line, leaving named cookies to mark our exit path wherever there was a T.

Little River is not a State Park, it is a County Park. It didn't have any built restrooms, but it did have some port-a-potties and huge wooden platforms leading down to the spring and river below the parking area. Similar to Madison Blue, the spring pumps almost directly into the river, but there was no noticeable bubble or boil of water coming out of the entrance which made us hopeful that the current wasn't flowing too strongly.

Little River Springs Board

Little River parking lot, spring entrance behind the Holiday Ford

View from Little River parking lot entrance out to the Suwannee and some boaters

Little River, clear blue spring water unmistakeable to the right, Kev walking to the river in the distance

Little River Springs, the cave system is pretty much below me, steps from parking lot on the right

There was one other diver getting ready to dive and we chatted to him while we kitted up, but he also hadn't dived here in a while and was unsure of cave conditions.

We carried our four stages and two cylinders down the many steps to the basin below and I realized just how much fitter I've gotten for carrying equipment, I hardly even noticed the weight of the stages. We jumped into the water and clipped everything on and then went to investigate the entrance. There is no current in the basin, but as soon as we got to the actual spring opening to the left of the dead tree in the water, we felt it pumping out hectically from the narrow shoot.

Me all clipped in and ready to dive in Little River

Dead tree looks like it's coming out of the entrance (left) to Little River

Kev was leading and he found a stake on the left hand side of the entrance which he hooked on to as the start of our line. Then pulling himself forward in the strong current with one hand and holding the line in the other, he managed to lay the line all the way down along the left hand side of the chimney to meet the main line on the left. The STOP sign is to the right as you enter. This first chimney (cavern entrance) goes from roughly 3m to 15m in depth and is about a 15m penetration. I got the nice easy job of following and using the scooter to maintain my position in the water, so I got to experience a full mid-current blast of the water flow in the entrance which would have been impossible if I'd been swimming, but using the scooter it was just fun.

Cavern entrance into Little River

Cavern entrance into Little River, over the ledge to the STOP sign

Once Kev had tied off, I took the lead. I had decided to keep the torch in my left hand even though my right hand was holding the scooter. I'd started putting the torch in my left hand at Peacock because my right knuckle is still injured and bruised from the scooter course we did when we first arrived. This was my first attempt at a left handed torch and right handed scooter since the course, and luckily worked really well. Even the added complication of dry suit inflation was easy to handle, and I noticed no additional drag scootering with the new dry suits.

The current was blowing hard, and I was thankful for the scooter to pull me along. The tube runs hard left from the entrance and then keeps bending left in a fairly tight circle descending to about 20-22 meters.

Photo taken from the STOP sign with cavern entrance up to the left and me entering the cave system

Little River cave entrance from the STOP sign, the tube bending left before me

Further along the corkscrew entrance in Little River

Still turning anti-clockwise towards the chimney in Little River

Then the passage hits the chimney where you turn 180 degrees as you drop straight down to 32m. The current was really blowing out of this chimney and I used the scooter at full speed but it hardly moved me forward and down at all.

Approach to the chimney in Little River

At the chimney in Little River, main line leads down on the left

Swimming down into the current at the chimney

Straight down the chimney (I'm heading vertically in this pic)

 I was pretty narked when I hit the bottom and I pushed along a bit to a little rocky indentation on the right and then lay down there to wait for Kev and check all my readings were ok and we were good to go. Kev joined me and we both checked our machines because a diluent flush with 32 percent at 33m gives a PO2 of about 1.3, so we couldn't flush our machines down which is a bit unnerving.

Then we set off again. The visibility wasn't great, but the walls are close so you could almost always see the whole tunnel. It is beautiful down there, once again very different from the other caves. The low part of the tube is worn away by the swirling water so it forms beautiful wave-like patterns. The floor is rocky with some sand. And then the upper parts of the limestone walls are streaked and pocketed. The higher flow is evident in the rounded off rock structures.

Towards the bottom of the chimney, I'm kicking hard to make the refuge over the ledge and to the right below me

At the bottom of the chimney, coming out of my refuge on the right with the beautiful twisted shell-like passage ahead and to the left

Little River Merry-Go-Round

The first T was much farther than I had thought it would be at 400', but I think it just felt further because it took us so long to get through the chimneys at the start. At the T, I marked our exit and we followed right. Very shortly after this we saw the jump to a tunnel that cuts through the center of the merry-go-round (the shortcut tunnel). It seemed that very shortly after this we hit another T, so the merry-go-round felt very small although it's shown as a full 400' loop to the right (again perhaps the scooters made this 400' go really fast). We continued through the system winding our way left and right along the passages, flying into that current with our scooters, it was fantastic.

At 1600' the passage started to narrow and the silt on the floor had been getting thicker since we left the merry-go-round. When I stopped using my scooter to start swimming through the passage because it was getting too tight, Kev stopped me and we turned and used both the scooters and the current to fly out of there at pace. It was about 45min time into the system, but we already had our TTS climbing towards 10min with a deco stop at 15m, and we still had to make our way back through about 1400' at 32m. We shouldn't have worried because combining the scooters and the current we often had to stop and use a finger on the walls to turn us and push us along into the passage. So cool!

When we got to the chimney, we checked our decompression stops and then used the walls to hold ourselves back and make a slow ascent while the current tried to spit us up and out. Then we floated with the current up the corkscrew, but as we approached the final chimney the pace of the current was hectic and if you let your fins point in the wrong direction you were going to get flung head-over-heels.

First we cleared our 12m stop down at 17m. Then Kev went to collect the reel and attempted to reel it in, but he was in the dangerous position for being flung out, so he handed the reel to me and I held it while he turned himself around. Now he had his face pointing into the current and his fins pointing up and out the rock-face. He took the reel back and reeled out and backwards like that. I tried turning to exit that way, but I didn't like it, so instead I put my fins back into the current, and used my heels to make sure that they didn't tip me over. Then I removed my buoyancy and lay flat down against the wall, pushing out from the rock-face with my arms and letting the current pick me up a few inches and then push me flat back into the wall. This was the most extreme exit I've ever made with deco, and it was great practice for us.

At 3m we could get out of the path of the spring current and into the restful basin and we hovered here allowing the memories of the dive to wash over us ... Hectic, but very cool and a lot of fun. Plus I think some of Kev's best cave pics yet. Awesome :)

Madison Blue

 http://www.underwatercavephotography.com/

Madison Blue Spring is a State Park about 1 hour north-east of Peacock Springs.

Peacock to Madison Blue (and a side trip to Pepe's)

Madison Blue Spring pumps its water into the Withlacoochee River, which then joins the Suwannee River a bit further south. Possibly because the spring is not on the Suwannee, it was not as badly affected by tropical storm Debbie as the springs on the Suwannee and Santa Fe rivers. We had heard reports from other divers that the viz was pretty good at Madison although the current was up.

Tim from the Dive Outpost very kindly asked his friend Paul to explain the ins-and-outs of diving at Madison Blue to us before we headed out there. Paul was extremely helpful and informative. He told us all about the Godzilla room and jump, about the Martz offshoot and how to get there either by swimming in the cave or by walking from the parking lot to the sink entrance. He told us about a restriction called the Half Hitch at about 800', and about getting to the Rotorooter and then the end of the main line at about 1700'. And finally about a nice jump to make into the Mount offshoot and on to an area called the Potter's Delight and then the Rocky Horror tunnel which leads to a beautiful section called the Court Yard. Apparently the Rocky Horror tunnel is a 300' section where you are committed to go the whole way through once you've started. They even have a board in the water with a marker which you switch on entry to indicate that you've entered the Rocky Horror passage and the system beyond. If you see that another dive team has entered, then you don't go in because two dive teams meeting head on in the Rocky Horror would be an extremely difficult situation to solve as you cannot turn around in there and one team would have to back out. Paul even drew us a simplified map of everything he explained which made it really easy for us to follow the paths we wanted when we entered the system.

Paul's map of Madison Blue

When we arrived at Madison Blue the park was empty ... perfect :) It is a beautiful spring, right on the river's edge with the spring water visibly pumping into the river with a strong current. It isn't nearly as dense a forest or as remote and wild as Peacock, and it's easy to imagine how busy it must get with swimmers, open water divers, and cave and cavern divers on the weekend.

Madison Blue Spring State Park Entrance Board

Madison Blue Spring with entry platform on the left, cave to the right and Withlacoochee River ahead

Madison Blue Spring, caves are below us, river to the right, see the flow at the steps

Madison Blue Spring from the river

Madison Blue Spring Panorama

Withlacoochee River where Madison Blue pumps water, see the line where the spring water touches the tannic river water

Divers at the Madison Blue platform and spring flow over the rocks into the river

Before carrying our kit from the car park to the platform in Madison Blue, we took a walk to visit Martz Sink. The opening is tiny and down some very steep stairs. This was the smallest sink opening we have seen, it is even smaller than Challenge, although Challenge has no stairs or platform built around it. It would be quite an adventure getting all our kit down and into that tiny entrance and then discovering the line into the cave system.

Pathway from Madison parking lot to Martz Sink

Halfway down the steps leading to Martz Sink

Finally it was time to dive. Kev took the lead and we pushed ourselves forward and into the pumping current coming out of the cavern entrance. This was the strongest flow we have experienced in all our dives so far. It made Ginnie feel like a gentle breeze! At least the floor was rocky and you could swim down and hold on and then kick and pull yourself forward resting every now and then while hanging onto a rock.

The cavern entrance is pretty short, just a couple of meters and we rounded the corner into a large room where we could get out of the current and take a breath. The clay and silt have piled up into the corners of this room and you have to stay off the bottom as soon as you round that corner. The STOP sign was right there with the main line leading off of it to the left.

Cavern entrance into Madison Blue

We followed that main line again just a few meters more and then it ducked left and then right down through a narrow opening in the rocks. The visibility in this section wasn't fantastic, and we were still fighting the strong current so we didn't look around for other options (which would have been smarter), we just headed along the line and through the restriction with all our bulky kit attached. Kev took two attempts to get his positioning right and make it through and I could almost hear him thinking the same thing I was thinking ... "If no one has mentioned this restriction, then what on earth are we headed in for at the restrictions that they have mentioned?!"

I'm smaller and I got to watch Kev, so I managed to angle myself through the restriction more easily and then Kev indicated that I should take the lead. The passage on from that restriction was flat and rocky with little pockets of silt and the current still pumping. I used the pulling technique whenever I could, and slowly frog-finned in the current where I couldn't find any rocks to pull myself along. It was slow going to the Godzilla room jump which is only about 200' from the entrance.

As planned, Kev made the jump with his reel onto the Godzilla line, then I took the lead again. We passed a jump right, and then a jump left, and then, just as Paul had explained, about 600' in I saw the clearly marked jump, with the next line up and to my right. Kev stayed on the line while I made the jump and then returned to continue our swim along the first line. The passages narrowed again and we got to do a little more pulling along gently without disturbing any silty pockets. I was having fun! Then I did a bit of a duck-down and emerged into a humongous room that was crystal clear compared to the passages we'd been in. This was it, the Godzilla Room!

The room looked like it was at least 6 stories up and down and about 8-10m wide, sort of like a huge diamond. We had been told that people put dummy Godzilla dolls in here for fun, and we counted 3 of them hanging about as we swam around this amazing room. Then I headed out the other side and up an enormous bank of silt which the current was trying to push me directly into. I tried hard to make sure that I didn't touch the silt or fin at all on that slope and when we got to the top, I turned and had a look and we hadn't done badly at all. Any silt we had disturbed was flowing passed me in the current.

From the top of the silt bed we immediately saw the jump reel I'd laid which allowed us to complete the circuit and then pick our easy way back, pushed along by the current. We quickly reached Kev's reel that joined us back to the main line.

The Godzilla Circuit

Our time here was 50min. We had planned that if we had time and were comfortable we would try get to the Martz jump on the main line after doing the Godzilla loop. I was having a great time, and I checked with Kev and he indicated he was good to continue too, woohoo! The average depth in Madison is only about 16m although it goes up and down like Peacock and our depth in Godzilla was about 26m. Before the dive started we had 100min left on our scrubber. So I calculated we could swim out from this point for about 30min before we had to turn around, and then the current would push us out and we'd be fine on our scrubber time. So we set off.

From 200' to the Martz offshoot the passages open up and the rocks are amazing. The walls and ceiling have huge scars on them, probably from the water current rushing passed. The visibility was better than we'd seen in a while. Sometimes we hit sections where part of the ceiling looked like it had collapsed and lay scattered on the floor.

Madison Blue opening up

Madison Blue passages before Martz

Madison Blue just before the duck down to Martz

Ceiling looks almost like a huge talon clawed through it

Duck-under the clawed ceiling to Martz jump

I made the duck-under the scarred ceiling and saw the Martz jump ahead with a string with white polystyrene markers hanging on the left, and then the line leading to Martz sink on the right with a little gate you could use to close the jump instead of laying a reel (this makes it quicker for divers entering from Martz to get onto the main line). As I swam over to investigate the gate, the water cleared completely. Suddenly we were in crystal clear, blue water with infinite visibility. It was amazing and beautiful.

Martz jump - polystyrene to the left of me, gold beneath, and jump to the right

Passage after Martz

Passage after Martz

Crystal waters after Martz, see how it looks like flakes from the ceiling have fallen down

As we continued onward the floor looked like a river of rippled white beach sand and the passages became more like solution tubes but with limestone pockets and structures in the walls. Just after 800' we got to the Half Hitch which is a restriction where you have to angle up and left and then down and right.

Me approaching the Half Hitch

Me disappearing into the Half Hitch

Kev appearing out of the Half Hitch

Me leaving the Half Hitch

The restriction wasn't tough. We emerged and checked our dive time. It was 70min, but we both wanted to try and push to 1000' and see a little more.

After Half Hitch the passages were much more silty, and we were still working hard against the flow. But the passages were simply beautiful.

Stunning passages in Madison Blue after Half Hitch

Rock formations and beautiful white rippled clay

Just as I saw the 1000' marker, the passage narrowed upward around a bend with lots of silt. It was 78 min run-time and definitely time for us to leave.

Map from the Godzilla jump to 1000' on the main line in Madison Blue

We turned and were literally flying along at a really nice pace. At Half Hitch we had to hold ourselves back from being pushed into the side walls and getting stuck at a strange angle. Then we were flying onward again.

Unfortunately as I tried to make one duck-under, my left ear got pressure stuck and wouldn't clear. Not again! This time we were deep in the system with not much space for me to manoeuvre upward and clear the pressure, and I didn't have much time left on my scrubber (although I think I could do 8 hours on this scrubber instead of 6, and I still had lots of open circuit gas to breathe). To make matters worse Kev had already disappeared with the strong flow, so I couldn't signal him. I felt a nervous flutter in my tummy.

In the strong current I went to the wall on my left, closest to the line, and let my head go up as far as it could in the passage, I felt it click open and turned right to go back down to the line but it immediately stuck again. I turned again and this time followed the ceiling back a few meters. Once again it cleared but as I turned right and swam back down it got stuck.

Now I was getting really nervous, and Kev still hadn't appeared. I took a deep, steadying breath, and decided to swim back along the line until the last shallow bend. I swam back against the current about 15-20m and managed to go up 2m and clear both ears hard and properly. Then instead of turning down and right I turned left, clearing continuously but losing sight of the line as I turned. This worked and I managed to keep my left ear clear as I returned to the line and then flew with the current down and out.

There was still no sign of Kev and the water was no longer crystal clear, but instead a silty mess from all my moving to and fro, and from our earlier passage. At another bend the water got really silty, and I got quite concerned that maybe Kev had come back looking for me and gone off-line. Luckily, just after that, I found him returning. I signaled that my ear had been the problem and all was ok now, and we quickly flew back passed Martz and through the cave to the outside. This incident gave me quite a scare, but Madison Blue remains one of my favourite dives. It was very different to the other caves, beautiful, epic and a lot of fun.

Hanging in the current on deco in Madison Blue

Kev in all his kit, with camera, emerging from Madison Blue

After the dive we went for a well deserved afternoon dinner at Pepe's, a top-notch Mexican restaurant in Live Oak. Topping off a brilliant dive with a magnificent meal :)

Pepe's ...yummy!